Palace to Tiglao: Good luck

Malacañang wishes President Management Staff (PMS) chief Rigoberto Tiglao all the best as he prepares to assume his new post as ambassador to Greece.

Tiglao, for his part, said he accepted the new assignment as "it is every journalist’s secret dream, from Carlos Romulo to Andre Malraux to Blas Ople, to represent his country in the world."

Romulo was a journalist and diplomat who later became fourth president of the United Nations General Assembly in September 1949. Malraux was a French writer and statesman, while Ople was a journalist, statesman and diplomat who was foreign affairs secretary at the time of his death in December 2003.

Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said yesterday that becoming an ambassador "is a dream of many public servants."

"It is good to be part of the foreign service, to be able to represent the country before the world. This is a great honor and we wish him well," he said over radio station dzRB.

Bunye said there was no replacement yet for Tiglao, who still has to face the Commission on Appointments for confirmation of his appointment.

He added that like other departments, the PMS has enough people to staff the office even if its top-level positions are being reshuffled.

Prior to joining government service, Tiglao was the Manila bureau chief of the Far Eastern Economic Review magazine. He was also connected with the defunct newspaper BusinessDay.

Tiglao joined the Arroyo administration in 2001 as President Arroyo’s presidential spokesman, where he earned the ire of many lawmakers with his bitter rebuttals to criticisms against her administration.

He eventually became presidential chief of staff, and was subsequently appointed as PMS chief in August 2004. — Aurea Calica<